Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

UNICEF is launching a global campaign to emphasize the power and safety of vaccines, primarily aimed at parents, the agency announced today. Launching next Wednesday, the campaign will coincide with the start of World Immunization Week. The campaign will be conducted on social media with the hashtag #VaccinesWork.

Jamie McGoldrick, Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, calls upon all parties to avoid further deterioration of the situation in the Gaza Strip on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the “Great March of Return” demonstrations in the enclave.

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti, Mamadou Diallo, and Prime Minister Jean-Henry Céant have launched the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti. It seeks $126 million to provide critical humanitarian assistance and protection services for 1.3 million Haitians.

To assist 2.3 million people in Mali, the United Nations and its humanitarian partners today launched the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan requesting $296 million. The situation there has deteriorated in recent years due to increased conflict and intercommunal clashes, as well as a high level of food insecurity.

More civilians were killed in the conflict in Afghanistan in 2018 than at any other time since records have been kept, according to a new report by the United Nations, which documented 3,804 deaths. The report attributed nearly two thirds of the casualties to anti-Government elements.

Marking International Day of Rural Women, the Secretary-General said rural women and girls are crucial in building a prosperous, equitable and peaceful future. He called on countries to take action to ensure that women and girls fully enjoy their human rights, including the rights of land and security of land tenure.

The Government of Zimbabwe has declared a state of emergency following a cholera outbreak in the capital, Harare, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. As of this morning, there have been more than 4,000 suspected cases, including 58 confirmed cases, and 25 cholera-related deaths.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says it is gravely concerned about reports of Zambia’s forced return of a Zimbabwean asylum-seeker to his home country. A senior Zimbabwean politician expressed his intention to seek asylum at the border yesterday, but Zambia reportedly handed him over to Zimbabwe authorities today despite a court order to the contrary.

The United Nations refugee agency said today that more than 2,000 Somalis have returned home from Yemen since 2017, as part of an assistance programme carried out jointly with the International Organization for Migration and authorities in Yemen and Somalia. Yemen currently hosts more than 270,000 refugees, the vast majority of them Somalis.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that volcanic activity on Vanuatu’s Ambae Island, which has a population of more than 10,000 people, has intensified in the last few weeks. The Vanuatu Council of Ministers has called for the immediate compulsory evacuation of Ambae residents to the neighbouring island of Maewo.

At the Global Disability Summit in London, the Deputy Secretary-General said that Governments’ commitments often does not translate into major improvements for the 1.5 billion persons with disabilities across the world, adding that the United Nations has launched a review of its approach, institutionally and operationally, to disabilities.

Ending a two-day mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock and Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sigrid Kaag called on the international community to urgently tackle the crisis in the country, where over 13 million people need humanitarian aid.

Secretary-General António Guterres called for continued calm in Zimbabwe. Closely following developments, he underlined the importance of resolving political differences through peaceful means, including through dialogue and in conformity with the country’s Constitution.

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Daily Noon Briefing

Due to sporadic rainfall in Bangladesh’s Teknaf peninsula, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and aid partners will truck water in the coming days to 140,000 Rohingya refugees, where water rationing due to limited supply has raised concern about the potential for water-borne diseases.